This blog will chronicle my comments and other critical articles, cartoons and videos. Time has come for us to put America first and Party 2nd. This page will have the good, bad and ugly of Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians alike, but will always offer pluralistic solutions effective June 8, 2014

Friday, March 2, 2018

This is an inspiring story! I hope more and more teens run for public office. In Dallas area, in the City of Plano, the Justice of Peace was a teenager elected three times in a Row. Ilan Cohen, we are proud of you and I wish more teens step up and take the country back from some of these idiots in Congress and Senate who are sold to the highest bidder. Unfree people in a free country.Full story at http://centerforamericanpolitics.blogspot.com/2018/03/jewish-teenager-running-to-be-governor.html

Mike Ghouse# # #

Meet the Jewish teenager from Maryland running to be governor of KansasCourtesy JTA.org

Ilan Cohen says it was a “very easy process” to get on the ballot in Kansas even though he is not legally allowed to vote. (Courtesy of Cohen)

(JTA) — Ilan Cohen loves Kansas. He knows a couple of people in Kansas. He’s currently, officially, running to be governor of Kansas.

And one day he hopes to visit Kansas. And turn 18. And be able to vote. And graduate from high school.

Right now, Cohen is a 17-year-old junior at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in suburban Washington, D.C. But that hasn’t stopped him from officially launching a gubernatorial campaign in a Midwestern state he’s never been to. Visit CohenForKansas.com, and you will see an honest-to-goodness campaign site complete with a biography, links to media coverage (including, um, Wikipedia) and an inspiring photo of corn.

Why is Ilan Cohen running for governor of Kansas?

“Because I can,” he said.

“One of the key reasons behind this candidacy is teen participation in political life,” Cohen told JTA in a 20-minute break from his campaign schedule — and 11th grade. “There are many ways of getting involved in the political scene before you’re 18, and oftentimes in ways you don’t necessarily expect. For instance, running for governor of Kansas.”

An apparent oversight in Kansas’ electoral laws has allowed anyone, anywhere, of any age, to become a candidate for governor. A handful of teenagers have jumped at the opportunity. They include Democrats, Republicans and others. One candidatemisspells the word “independent” on his campaign site.

The state did successfully bar a dog from running, and it is now trying to figure outhow to keep this from happening in the future. A bill raising the minimum age to 18 and requiring residency in the state is advancing.

“I went on the website, entered my name, my address, phone number and email address, and then I did the same thing for my treasurer, and then maybe one more time, and then I pressed submit,” Cohen said. “I didn’t have to show ID or prove that I’m a citizen of the United States or anything. It’s a very easy process.”

The first teen to register to run for Kansas governor was Jack Bergeson, also 17, who began his campaign last year. Bergeson is actually from Kansas and, like Cohen, is a liberal running in a state that’s been red since the 1968 election. Bergeson’s platform is a bit more detailed than Cohen’s: He supports Medicare for all, a $12 minimum wage and laying high-speed rail between major Midwestern cities. JTA was unable to reach him directly.

“I am not getting into the so-called game of politics for my own personal gain,” Bergeson said at a teen candidates’ forum recorded by the Wichita Eagle. “Ultimately I decided to take the plunge into the deep end to do something career politicians tend not to do. That’s taking the power away from the wealthy few and handing it to the people who work 40 hours [a week] or more just to put food on the table and keep the lights on.”

Cohen said his top issue is narrowing the educational achievement gap, though his campaign is more lighthearted. But he’s a serious admirer of the current student activism for gun control launched by survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Cohen was an organizer of a planned student walkout last week protesting gun violence that the Charles E. Smith administration ultimately quashed, according to the school’s student paper, the Lion’s Tale.

“I’m inspired by it,” Cohen said of the Parkland campaign. “I think the work they’re doing is very crucial. I think it is beautiful. I think it is important, and I think it set a very important precedent for the country.”

When he’s not in class, Cohen is involved in youth politics back home. He’s a district director of the Junior State of America, which engages kids through debates, model Congress and other activities. He’s an officer on the International Executive Board of United Synagogue Youth, the youth group of Conservative Judaism. And he writes for his school paper and the satirical paper, which he says he likes better.

“Whether it is going to shul and occasionally seeing a Supreme Court justice, or even growing up and just knowing you live right by D.C., growing up surrounded by politics, it really does have an effect on me,” he said.

Cohen wants to attend college after he graduates next year, and he knows that could be a challenge if he wins the election. But the teen is committed to Kansas — and can’t wait to see it for the first time.

“If I win governor of Kansas, we’ll see what schools there are in the area,” Cohen said. “It’ll be difficult to balance being a college student and governor. However, it is my promise to the people of the great state of Kansas that I will try my hardest.”

Sunday, February 25, 2018

There is nothing one can do if you believed in Bill Clinton, or believe in Donald Trump. Facts don’t matter to you, indeed, if we are friends and family, we should stand up for their rights without hesitation, but we should be cautious in blindly defending others.

Fighting against Mueller investigations clearly tells indicates that you want your beloved man protected regardless of facts; all it shows is blind support. Mueller is Republican and when he was appointed to head the investigations, the Republicans had nothing but praise for his integrity and honesty, now that he is unearthing the facts; he has become a bad guy to the very same people. Comey was Republican and Trump lavished praises on him for releasing that report ten days before the elections that knocked Hillary out.

Clinton supporters argued, screamed and did everything while the investigations were going on. Now if you hear Judge Jeanine on Fox news, she represents the height of stupidity, my own friend Sean Hannity wants to get rid of investigations – why Sean? What are you afraid of? Let facts roll in, and if Trump is innocent the facts will show, if not, why defend? Ari on CNN is anti-Trump without all the facts.

CPAC straw poll is as useless as anything out there. An overwhelming majority of the attendees are hardcore supporters of Trump –from his base. Do you expect anyone to vote differently? Take the poll in the public from general public; you will have much better indications.

We are the land of the brave and not bullies, we are the land of the free and not bonded to politicians. I am looking for free people, those who are independent and capable of seeing the good, bad and ugly on both sides. I have spoken against Hillary, Romney, McCain, Obama, and Trump while appreciating the goodness in them.

You cannot be Goddamned free if you cannot see the faults of your political leaders. What do we want, Truth or Trump?

A decade ago, we had less than 5% of the people who were independent, now In Gallup's most recent analysis, 42 percent of Americans identify as independent, compared with 29 percent who say they are Democrats and 26 percent who say they are Republicans.

Should we have an association of independents? Who can field and endorse candidates from all parties, but based on serving America and not serving their own interests?

Monday, December 11, 2017

Full article may appear at "the hill" later tonight or Huffpost in the morning and will appear hear as well. We
believe that the best governance happens when we have checks and balances in
place and the best thing that Americans can do at this time is to keep the
house majority with the Republicans and give the Senate majority to the
Democrats. That will prevent slam dunking the bills through the Congress and
the Senate and due discussions will take place for the benefit of Americans. If
you look back, you will find that all the bad decisions were made when the
President, Senate and Congress are from the same party. For the sake of America
and integrity of our government, we hope the Alabamians do the right
thing. Full Article - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alabamians-you-can-set-the-course-of-our-nation-in_us_5a300110e4b0bad787127052

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

If the good Republicans don't speak out against the current culture of supporting and campaigning rapist, p**** grabbers and misogynists - they will pay a heavy price in 2018. May be they deserve it as they have become arrogant. Does character mean anything to the Republicans anymore? That is how they are being perceived now and will be believed as a party of immorality in 2018 mid-term elections.

If the good Democrats cannot take the lead and ask Bill Clinton to apologize and ask Senator Franken and Coneyer to resign immediately or proceed to get them out, who will? Democrats have an opportunity to restore morality in governance. Republicans won't do it until their arrogant majority is taken out in 2018.

Shame on Pastor Robert Jeffress and slick willies like him who are abusing Jesus's teaching and approving immorality. You guys are disrespectful of women's testimony. Aren't women equal to men?

Republicans wake up, every dog has his day. You are earning a lot of resentment from fellow Americans by supporting vulgar men like Roy Moore.

Friday, December 9, 2016

At this point in history, we are going through difficult times. Whether you are on the right, left or the center, you are concerned about the liberties and freedoms of all Americans. The divisiveness, even though temporary, has caused us to lose trust in each other to function effectively as a nation.

So what can we do?

Our President John Kennedy had famously urged us, “Ask not what the country can do - ask what you can do for your country.” and Professor William James had written that our actions can change the moods.

Here is what we can to do to restore America where no Americans feels left out, but feels included in nation building.

Let’s close 2016 on a positive note, let’s come together as Americans, and celebrate our collective Festivals of Hanukkah, Christmas, Milad, Kwanza, Janamashtami, Gurpurab and the festivities of Native Americans, and other traditions including Atheist/Humanist. Each group will get to sing honoring their faith tradition.

When we are together, it is uplifting!We can change our moods!

The following video has clips from Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Milad, Janamashtami and other great celebrations. On the actual day of Festival of Faiths, Americans Together will celebrate their traditions.

Dr. Mike Ghouse is founder and president of Center for Pluralism aka Americans Together. He is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. All about him in 65 links at www.MikeGhouse.net

Monday, June 27, 2016

Here is why I quit in October 2014:

Columnist George Will Leaves GOP over Donald Trump

JUNE 27, 2016

HEADLINES

The leading conservative columnist and commentator George Will has left the Republican Party over the presumed nomination of Donald Trump. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Will said he had changed his voter registration in Maryland to "unaffiliated" 23 days ago.

George Will: "Shortly after Trump became the presumptive nominee, he had a summit meeting with Paul Ryan, where they stressed their common principles and their vast shared ground, which is much more important than their differences. I thought that was puzzling, doubly so because Paul Ryan still didn’t endorse him. After Trump went after the Mexican judge from northern Indiana, then Paul Ryan endorsed him. And I decided that, in fact, this is not my party anymore."

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

One of the best articles written about debunking some of the Republican hatred for Blacks and women.

Mike Ghouse# # #

June 21, 2016 by Mindy Fischer

Three of the main attacks on Hillary are that she’s dishonest and untrustworthy, she is involved in too many scandals, and she has ties to big money and Wall Street. So let’s take a look at all three….

Hillary Clinton is being held to a higher standard than any of her male counterparts. That is a fact. But why is that? Is it because she’s a woman? I don’t know, but considering how often she is attacked for doing nothing more….and in many cases far less….than any man that’s run for President, it’s hard to imagine that sexism doesn’t play at least a part in the Hillary-hating.

It’s a little reminiscent of the way Republicans have treated President Obama. They have shown more disrespect and outright hatred for Obama than any President in history. And it’s just as hard to imagine that racism doesn’t play a part.

But of the many attacks constantly thrown at Hillary, there seem to be three that consistently come up….dishonesty, scandals, and her ties to big money and Wall Street. But are those attacks….many times border-lining on slander….warranted?

Well let’s break these attacks down and shine a little reality into the situation.

Hillary Clinton is a liar! I don’t trust her!

First of all, let me state the obvious right up front. Hillary is human. And yes, she has made mistakes. Please show me a politician who’s never told a lie or exaggerated or embellished….you can’t….because there are none. But in most cases where she is accused of lying, people are just repeating something they’ve heard countless times. Whether or not she has actually lied about whatever issue doesn’t matter to Hillary-haters. They’ve successfully stoked the narrative that she’s not honest.

It doesn’t matter to the haters that many of the things she’s been accused of lying about are simply her evolving her positions over the years. Obama and any politician who’s been around more than 5 minutes has done the same. But it’s only Hillary that gets bombarded with the liar label. Because, well….Hillary.

But is Hillary a bigger liar than Trump, or any other politician for that matter? No. In fact, according to PolitiFact Hillary Clinton is actually the most honest of any candidate that has run for President this cycle.PolitiFact has rated 24% of her contentious statements as perfectly “true.” While that may seem low, compare that to Bernie Sanders….who no one has ever called a liar….who rated at just 15% for perfectly true statements.

If you add up Hillary’s comments that scored “true,” “mostly true,” or “half true” she scores 72%. Bernie scores 70%. Only 14% of Hillary’s statements rated as “false” or “pants on fire.” By the same measure, Bernie scored 15%.

But if you really want to look at a good comparison, you have to look at Trump’s scores. Trump only gets the “true” rating 2% of the time. And when you add his “false” and “pants on fire” statements he scores a whopping 61%, which makes him the biggest liar of any politician PolitiFact has ever scored. And yet when Trump is literally lying 61% of the time….compared to Hillary’s 14%…..he is somehow still seen as being more honest than Hillary. Ironically every time Trump carries on about Hillary’s lies, it is actually Trump who’s lying.

Hillary is guilty of all sorts of scandals!

It’s interesting that Hillary-haters just automatically assume that she’s guilty because there have been scandals surrounding her. The truth is another thing entirely. Has Hillary had her share of scandals? Yes. But just because she has been accused of something or implicated in a scandal does not make her guilty. As a matter of fact, in every case she has been cleared of any wrongdoing. Funny how Repubs never mention that part.

Every time she is implicated in some new scandal, Republicans just continue to pound the “she’s untrustworthy” drum. And that’s the whole point. They know that every time they can attach her to a scandal they can feed their narrative.

The Republicans have spent more time and money investigating Hillary than any other politician in history. They once literally spent 10 days and 140 hours to investigate her use of the White House Christmas card list. Seriously.

Just look at how they’ve handled her “email scandal.” This is just another example of how Hillary is being held to a standard that no one else is being held to.

Hillary has been accused of using a personal email server that could have made classified documents less secure. (Never mind that the classified documents in question weren’t labeled classified until AFTER she sent or received them.) But, once again, after wasting time and money, the Republicans have found no basis for any criminal charges.

Compare the way Hillary is being treated about this whole email thing to the General David Petraeus scandal. Petraeus was the Director of the CIA when he purposefully gave his mistress classified documents revealing the identities of covert officers, war strategy, intelligence capabilities, information from high level National Security Council meetings, and conversations that Petraeus has with the President. And if that weren’t bad enough Petraeus then lied about it to government officials and the FBI. There is no question about any of this. Petraeus eventually confessed to the whole thing.

Clearly what Patraeus did was far worse than anything Hillary has been accused of. Yet it is Hillary, not Petraeus who the Republicans want in jail. To this day Petraeus is a beloved figure to righties and the Republicans would bring him back to the White House in a heartbeat if Trump won. Double standard? Yep…just like with most attacks on Hillary.

Hillary is tied to big money and Wall Street!

Hillary has made a lot of money from speaking engagements, that is true. But she hardly invented big paying speeches. It is not uncommon for former politicians, or celebrities, or sports stars, or business tycoons to receive huge speaking fees. Paris Hilton has been paid $750,000 just to show up at events, for example.

After 9/11 Rudy Giuliani was making around $700,000 a month on speaking fees, with an average of about $270,000 per speech. It’s estimated that Giuliani made about $40 Million over the 5 years before he ran for President in 2007. But was he demonized for that? No. Did anyone question the fees or his loyalties? No. Clinton, on the other hand, has been scrutinized endlessly about this.

Now, there certainly is a discussion worth having about how much money is in politics. But pinning the entire game on Hillary is ridiculous.

As for Wall Street, the vast majority of Hillary’s money has actually NOT come from Wall Street. Since leaving her job as Secretary of State, Hillary has made approximately 100 speeches. Of those 100, only 8 of them were to Wall Street banks. The rest of her speeches were given to organizations like the American Camping Association, Ebay, Cisco, Xerox, the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, A&E Television Networks, the Massachusetts Conference for Women, the U.S. Green Building Council, and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries….just to name a few.

All but one of Hillary’s 8 speeches to Wall Street paid her $225,000. While that is a lot of money, it wasn’t close to the most she was being paid to speak.

So do her speaking fees mean that she is suddenly beholden to the group who paid her? Hardly. And once again why is Hillary the only one questioned about this? Is she influenced by Wall Street? Yes. But please show me one politician or business, or person for that matter who is not affected by Wall Street. Wall Street drives our economy. How could we not be influenced by them? But influence does not equal guilty of corruption. This should not be a case of guilt by association.

And just for another basis of comparison, Trump has been paid $1.5 Million several times for speeches. So where’s the outrage about that? Oh, right….there is none….he’s a Republican. And a man.

Hillary is definitely not a perfect candidate. And yes, there are going to be times that she disappoints. She is an imperfect human….like we all are. But one thing that is for sure is that she is the most qualified candidate to ever run for the office. I’d hold up her resume to those on the Republican side any day of the week….and twice on Sundays.

And for all of the attacks that have been launched at her over the years, she has always come out standing strong. She is battle tested, sharp, and able to withstand endless unwarranted attacks. The attacks certainly feed into the Republican narrative about her, but very little is based in reality.

Dr. Ghouse has appeared in over 200 TV shows and is a frequent guest with Hannity and Varney shows at Fox News along with others. He has over 1000 hours of Radio Shows of which 700 were dedicated to interfaith and pluralism. Over 3000 articles have been published of which a 1000 were on politics, foreign policy, sports and movies, a 1000 for interfaith and pluralism matters and a 1000 plus on Islam. In addition Mike has conducted workshops on Atheist to Zoroastrian and every one in between.

WHO ARE MODERATES

They are sensitive to what's happening around them and take the necessary action, they are not stick-in-the-muds. They are willing to place America first, party next.

Moderates are usually silent, but do exercise their vote and keep the radicals out. They dumped Santorum, Pawlenty, Bachman, Gingrich, Cain, Rudy Guiliani, Alan West, Sara Palin and others.

A few names who have demonstrated moderation at times are; Chris Christie, Colin Powell, Arnold Schwartngegger, John Huntsman, Condi Rice, Mark Rubio, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, John McCain - moderates are also characterized by self-criticism. No one know what Romney was.

'Radical' conservatives are characterized by jumping on any one who criticizes their party, they lack introspection, and are stuffed with me or you attitude, and rarely do they know what 'we' and 'us' means.

Moderate Republicans are distinguished by their ability to see a different point of view, and are the majority, a silent majority within the party. Its time for us to speak up before we get completely routed out.

Bush Penance

As Republicans we do not have the balls to face there realities of life, instead we curse and blame others. Bush lied to Americans to go to war with Iraq, We may blame Cheney, but the buck stops at the President. What was the cost?

01. Million Americans losing their Jobs

02. Businesses going out of business

03. Racks up 8 Trillion dollars in debt

04. Millions of home foreclosure

05. Thousands of business shut downs

06. Divorces

07. Death of 500,000 Iraqis for his lies

08. Death of 4, 486 Americans troops09. Thousands of women on the street

10. Add Afghanistan..

For what? We Republicans have to pay a prices from our silence when crimes against humanity were committed.

I hope some day he apologizes to Americans, Iraqis and Afghans. I don't understand how one can live with so much guilt and not seek forgiveness.